Final Fantasy Hacktics

look, throwing out wild accusations will solve nothing,  everyone dispersed for the night as you well know, none of us have alibis(unless there was a um... romantic interlude).  I spent the night as I always do, some reading, and some gaming. 

I find that keeping to myself is by far the safest action, since no one is in my confidence, no one can approach under seeming friendship

still and all, anyone who boxes their cats OBVIOUSLY can't be trusted:

##vote: st4rw4ker

Quote from: Gotwald on March 02, 2011, 06:41:36 pm
Is there a master guide for this project yet? Or is that still in the works?

good point, once we've knocked 1.0 around some and its clear its stable, might want to take a bit before the inevitable 2.0 and generate a master's guide

downloading now

dammit, Its NOT always the quiet ones...
I was enjoying a peaceful read of the classic terry pratchett in my quarters.

PM received and read: confirmed

Quotejust how powerful can PA*WP get, right?

you haven't changed very many weapons, PA*WP maxes out at 99*40 or about 3960 damage

ok ok, 99 PA isn't happening,  a more realistic high-end PA for a level 99 is ~20 for 800 damage and getting even that high would be leveling in knight or mime exclusively.  you need to have 25 PA to 999 everything with a PA*WP formula, doable but god it'd be a pain to setup.

personally balancing for anything above level 50 or so is pointless unless you have enemies with fixed levels that high.  12*40 is 480, again that takes a chaos blade, and second place is javelin+(30) at 360 followed by excalibur(24) at 288.

not sure if chaos would be a one-shot at 50(doubtful) but excalibur won't be.
and none of this is attainable if you actually level as an enchater or its pre-req classes or even play as enchanter

There is one big worry, with a longbow/dagger, PA*WP is STRONGER than a regular attack once your PA passes your SP(6 or so)

all this says to me, mp costs for imbues will need to go up pretty significantly

counter's on mystic, finally got that unlocked

3 options for red-mage special

rad: detailed above, he needs a role, and in vanilla he's a squire with some oracle tricks which leads right into redmage(ffxi's version) and he arrives early enough for the skill set to be worthwhile.  This is my vote

agrias:  its a stretch, her true class as far as ff history would be concerned would be paladin(her vanilla whitemage levels) but again as far as FF lore, redmages were knights that ventured into the magical at the cost of physical ability, and a redmage would be the 2nd choice as a guardian knight behind a paladin(and being the 2nd choice would explain why she sucks so hard at it) again, joins early enough for skill to not be outclassed

beowulf:  no question its where he fits to keep him from doing a tapdance on oracle's feet, but he's a chapter 4? character...

for the twins... the old darknight sell out would fit for them.  could do the darknight(knight with black magic) paladin(knight with white magic) dichotomy as well.

Another thing, jumping on dancer/singer hate.  drop those two classes completely(even getting rid of the performer idea) and make the twins a "swordsinger" and a "bladedancer" give each a reduced version of the appropriate skill set (the status songs have to die, as well as the speed ones[ct and sp], neither can be balanced) and then throw in some instant PA based ranged attacks.

of course now you gotta figure out what to replace bard/dancer with, but you're down to just 1 needed class instead of 3

+1 to boco needing a boost, even if it makes chapter 1 harder, sad 2 of the hardest vanilla fights are in chapter 1(dorter and windmill)

Quote from: Celdia on February 23, 2011, 02:48:16 am
Enchanter needs some help, I'll admit. It originally was 100% proc but didn't use eqiupped weapon damage. I wanted the damage correct more than I wanted it to hit 100% of the time with the statuses. It should still be going off 25% of the time though.

my luck never has been good with that 25% rate, did a quick read on your formula options and you're kinda screwed.  personally I'd prefer the status over the damage(I'm one of those oracle fans on the FFT fringe), but it's not my patch.

Quote from: Celdia on February 23, 2011, 02:48:16 am
Demagogue is great if you've given your team the proper equipment to resist the effects that it inflicts. Otherwise it can be difficult to use effectively.

And that's why you don't beeline for classes... didn't even think of that given where I am in my playthrough(most of those accessories aren't available yet)

by the way, the AI manipulation you did to make provoke is brilliant.

three more things:
1) am I blind or has counter vanished?

2) any plans to screw with special character skill sets, particularly mustaido(he really should have equip gun on his base class, I can accept no equip sword on agrias, she'll have the class to get it unlocked at perma-join)

3) I'm still very early in my play through(chapter 2) but enemy variety has been somewhat lacking, lot of red mages knights and archers, occasional thieves, amazingly few cooks/homemakers given they're technically starter classes.  I don't think I've faced an enchanter, and only 1 brawler I think(sand rat)

Quote from: EpicSolidSnake on February 23, 2011, 06:58:12 am
This will give me a reison to NOT ban em out right away after i get em...i always unequip em and use Ramza's ban hammer on em usally.
Good idia, maybe there could be worth the 3 slots there using....for once.

seconded, rad lavian and alicia have never fought in anything but the intro battle for me, though i will miss the free money from stealing their gear 

two balance notes I want to bring up before I forget.

1) enchater... the idea is great, and maybe my luck sucks, but I barely ever get its status inflictions to actually trigger, basically I'm burning mp for an accuracy boost because slow/blind/etc never proc.

on that note, was using a skill supposed to give 100% acc(assuming nothing in way of the shot)?

2) demagouge, dumb targeting and 5 square effect? wow, makes it kinda hard to use.  basically I take advantage of heavy armor+ DefenseUp and send him off on his own.

QuoteSpeaking of lowish Brave or Faith, though, now I wonder if there's a way that you could make a Support or even a Reaction that benefits from you having lower rather than higher Brave. Hmmm....

yeah I brought up a similar idea on another patch(mando i think) of splitting reactions into two groups, defensive(auto-potion/regenerator/dragon spirit/etc) and offensive(counter/hamedo/counter flood/etc) and making the defensive 100-br for an activation rate.

never did hear whether that was even possible, but if it is I stand by it being a great idea.

as for innocent from a reaction, probably not a good idea.  though if you can find a way around it being a post-battle change as well, faith down(-5 or so) on magic hit actually wouldn't be that bad.

heres a bug... apparently you used hi-potion/x-potion to make poison vial/sedative?  auto-potion still triggers those.

explanation:  last battle of chapter 1, hit algus(auto-potion reaction) with blizzard and reaction triggers, it pops a poison vial and puts him to sleep, no HP regained

poison vial and venom do the same thing?  and if so, why is venom(the better one since it adds don't act/don't move too) cheaper?

you missed it:

time mage should be the fast mage.  it should have weak stats OTHER THAN SPEED.  That's your reason for being a time mage main, to ensure silence before that black mage gets off flare, to get fire2 off before cure 2 procs or the chemist gets over there.

QuoteAlso, wtf @ time mage class... crap HP, moderate MP, lower tier speed, crap PA, and lower tier MA?  Every class should be viable.  And, while ideally every class should be also unique, its better to have two duplicates than something that is just outright horrible.

other than "lower tier speed"  time mage needs to be the weakest of the mages to balance its skill set.  meteor shortcharge haste and stop, while all expensive, once learned are all top tier abilities that are routinely stolen for other classes use.  so the balance tactic is: make the time mage weak to increase difficulty while learning those skills, and make those skills expensive so can't be realistically picked up by jp spillover.  make mid-game harder for elite late game mages

I do have a problem with time mage's speed tier though.  they should be the fastest of the mages(which with the way charging works gives them at least some role as a carrier)  a 7 speed rating would probably be for the best, still not competitive with archer/ninja/thief(the true speed jobs) but high enough that they have a calling card:

mage roles as I see it:
wizard = MA
oracle = def/HP
summoner = MP
priest = PA
time = speed
sage/red/blue = balance

this should be interesting, pick me!

yeah, that (hopefully unintentional) starwars tie makes it sound a bit cheesy, but I really have no ideas that wouldn't be worse.  Ideally you'd want something that reflects the storyline some.

given a choice between sage, necro, red and blue.  I vote blue for a couple reasons.

least improtant, my ffxi class is blue mage and therefore I'm biased

necro can't really be implemented in a manner that makes sense.  closest to what I think of when I think necro is a summoner re-work.

redmage always just seems like a generic slot filler.  implementing/balancing doublecast is incredibly difficult, and every other role redmage ever held is filled by other classes in fft: (melee mage: oracle/geo, debuffer: oracle, quick caster: time).  sage while it technically has a unique skill set nearly all its abilities are rehashes making the class itself largely redundant

blue mage has normally been the flipside of the redmage coin, redmage gets (fairly) easy access to weak abilities other classes get(cure1, raise, tier 1~2 nukes, singletarget pro/shell, poison, slow), blue mage gets (theoretically) difficult access to equal power if not stronger abilities other classes get(whitewind, aero, mightyguard, bad breath)

the argument of redmage with a unique skill set... well I'm a traditionalist, when I see the name "Red Mage" I have certain expectations of the class, and if those expectations aren't met, I wonder why the designer/s didn't come up with a unique name for what is a unique class.  redmage is: collection of weak skills from every mage, if you're not gonna go in that direction, just don't call it redmage.  yes its petty but I have ~20 years of FF-standard red mage, its ingrained now.

personally would drop lancer to a 2 hp* and bump sam to a 4(assuming you're nerfing/dropping bladegrasp as is standard)

lancers are a heavy armor class, with 0 native need for MA-therefore would never be in robes- whose ability(jump) makes them invincible for significant stretches of time.  now compounding that with the 2nd highest hp and they might be the best tank class, a role that should go to knights.

samurai on the other hand have very limited defense options(the reason the devs gave them that broken bladegrasp to begin with).  but most importantly their skill is MA based necessitating robes and/or ma+ accessories to get the most out of it, potentially taking them out of their heavy armor.


time mage seems low, but its probably necessary to keep haste/meteor/short charge under control, making mid-game harder(while your learning the skills) to make end easier(when you can use it as a sub skill on oracle)

geo/sam MA is high, which brings me to an overall note.  It seems that you used mp nerfs more than MA nerfs to differentiate mage classes vs physical classes and you can't really do that.  the way the gear system works mp/hp from gear obliterate mp/hp from modifiers unless its a massive difference(basically a 1 to 4 comparison here)  once the 3rd robe unlocks its extremely rare for mp concerns to ever affect strategy.

obviously certain physical classes need ma(geo/sam/hopefully ninja**) but really no physical class should have higher than a 3 MA and no other mage should be as low as the 3 time mage should have

*lancers traditionally had a high modifier because their tree was all low hp growth classes with the exclusion of knight,  playing it straight(no jp grinding tricks) a lancer would have significantly less hp than an equivalent tier class due to all that time in archer/thief.

** best use of ninja I've seen is the ffxi/infused type, ditching throw for magic attacks+status, and differentiating ninja swords by having them give ma(daggers gave speed), keeping in a throw shuriken move just for tradition.

Quote from: Kaijyuu on February 17, 2011, 09:12:41 pm
Surprised Earthbound is on the list, since it's one of those games.

earthbound got tons of (very)post-release mainstream press particularly from the smash brothers series with some minor bumps from the mother3 translation project, not surprised to see it(sucks it has to go up against chrono, its screwed).  skies of arcadia on the other hand, THAT was a shocker

really, I wouldn't give FFT an "art of videogames" vote, its art doesn't stick with me like many of its time. but considering what its up against... the ps1 C&C and carnage heart?  that's not a tough choice

side note:  how the hell am i supposed to pick between metroid, smb3 and megaman 2? how? how? how?